hi, i'm lisa flesher and you are on the "the stream." is black power only for black men? ♪ >> our digital producer is here bringing in all of your live feedback as it comes into the studio, and our community is hotly debating the state of black women in america. >> yeah, and the stream he only tackle light hearted topics,

like race. and of course our unopinioned audience has their feedback. so you the viewer at home. we know you have opinions on this subject. we know it. and out there this show be sure to join the discussion, because you are the third host of the show, by tweeting us. >> black power is for black men. recently that hashtag sparked debate across the country. black women used it to show how they are left out of the community. we talked with civil rights leader gloeshia richardson about the march on washington. she actually spoke there, and

she was added to the program at the march on washington following a lot of criticism that women aren't invited. >> they called the women very late in the march, as least as far as i was concerned. i understand that ann arnold hedgeman has fought to have women represented. >> so she said she realized the role of women at the march wasn't what it seemed. >> they had a separate place for women to march from. i was left in the tent. the women told me they would be going to the lady's room and be back. and finally i had to be brought to the stage. when i got on the stage, the first two people i saw were josephine baker and lena horne, and they said to me, they have taken your chair away, you need to raise hell.

when they called my name. people said go up. and i went up and said hello, and then they took the mic and that was it. >> take a look at some of the tweets from the online conversation . . . so how far have black women really come in the last half century? here to talk about it is avis jones deweaver host of "focus points" on npr. in our google hangout, britney cooper. she writes about race for several publications including salon.com.

and the editor of a blog that focuses on issues within the black community. i don't think we can talk about how far black women have come without putting it in the context of compared to what? what is the state of black america as it relates to the expectations of women 50 years ago. so 1963, do you think this now is what those women had envisioned? >> i think we definitely had made some wonderful strides since 1963. black women have burst down the doors of higher education and really leading the way in entrepreneurship. but i think our forparents would be a little dishartened to see that we are still facing a lot of the sexism in the broader

society and the black society itself. >> amani what has happened to the voice of black women over the last 50 years? >> i think the voice has gotten stronger over the last 50 years, but as was said, there is a long way to go. i think part of the problem is, and you see it with the million man march, there's sort of this idea that when we're talking about the black community, the focus tends to be on how black men are doing. the school to prison pipeline. how is that effecting young black male students or stop and frisk, how is that affecting young black men. trayvon martin was talked a lot about, but melissa alexander wasn't. i think black women tend to be ignored when it comes to discussion of race, and when it comes to issues of feminism. you have a lot of talk of saline

that dunham is supposed to be this example of what great feminism is. but then on the other hand you have people saying beyonce is not a feminist. but these same criticisms aren't levied against lady gaga or madonna. >> you used the word ignored. and our community seems to have picked up on that . . .. so speaking about change, you named some pop culture icons there. we have barack hussein obama, biray shall son of a kenyan man. and the butler is the number one move i have in america two weeks

in a row. is this proof we have achieved biracial securities in america? >> i think you know that answer to that. of course not. there's a black woman who is the first lady of the country, but there is also a set of con scripted narratives about her rise to her position, and whether or not she could actually be a lady when she first made it into office. her popularity was not without contestation. we are certainly seeing black women make major gains in media. you see oprah, and ava who was named the best female director at sun dance last year, and we

have serena and venus. so you do see black women breaking down barriers, but by contrast, last night on the mtv vma's we had miley cyrus on stage, slapping black women on the rear, appropriating forms of black dance culture in the most obscene ways. so i think that there's contestation about -- about the progress on all sides so that it seems on the one hand we make two steps forward and then you have these other moments that feel like you are taking three steps back. >> you know, going back to black women within the black community. they are a huge asset within the black community and community at large. they are typically and at t

the -- and stat cystically head of households. why is their story not changing. >> when we have more visibility as it relates to not only the print media, radio, television, movies, then we can see from black women's voices directly. and i'm really proud of black women on the blogestsphere. look at what hand last week with russell simmons and his abomination of a, quote unquote, parity. it was black women who took him to the whooping shed on twitter. and that's the reason why he had that quick backtrack. if we had that same level of power in other areas, then we

can have greater power in a more broods realm. >> i want to talk about the boldness of black women's voices. we asked our community what issues and challenges were unique to black women. and we'll share your thoughts right after the break.

mission. >> there's more to america, more

stories, more voices, more points of view. now there's are news channel with more of what americans want to know. >> i'm ali velshi and this is "real money." this is "america tonight." sglovrjs our -- >> our news coverage reveal more of america's stories. ♪ well were always in the background. nowadays they are more up front, you know? but we still have a lot more work to do, where the civil rights, you know, need to help women. because still women are getting

paid less, and the fight is just so long and hard. >> what are the issues and challenges facing black women that are different than those that the larger community faces. >> uh-huh. which raises an interesting issue, avis, it seems black women's issues are never a separate discussion from black men. why can't we talk about them separately? >> that's a critical point, and a point that was raised before, right? when we think of black issues, it is almost a cultural appropriation. when you think blackness, you tend to think black maleness, and likewise when you think of

women in america, the face of womanhood in america seems to be a white women. black women are in the periphery, and until we make intentional acts to put a frame on the black women's experience, it's rare that it happens. >> and how do you do that? >> i think something i have been struggling with a lot lately is what i see as a widening schism when black feminists specifically, and white feminists, and i think you saw that come to a head with the hashtag solidarity is for white women that was created in order to bring these issues to the forefront, and what was interesting about the way that she did that, is she sparked this global hashtag where people were talking about what it means to be a black woman, and how it

is that we are often asked to separate our race from our gender, so the idea of intersectionality becomes lost, when we're told we need to stop complaining about racism because we need to fight for women. and black women have been told that since the dawn of time, and then the interesting part was, is that when that hashtag made it to the blogestsphere, she was erased from it. black women are erased from the movement that they helped create. >> or community chimed in with that . . . but avis you touched upon frame, and a lot of women want to talk about these stereo types . . .

brittany i'm going to go to you. the help, precious, tyler perry movies. the passy black best friend. angry black woman. the sassy black friend who is bringing down the house. what is the reality versus the main stream media perception? >> i want to echo the point that it is really important for us to name. when we began we were talk about black powers for black men hashtag, and that was created by jamila lemieux. but what you have pointed to is the inability to see black women

as complex and humane. so we don't get complex representations, we get these caricatures, and they are not just happening from white directors or stories that center white women as the help, but tyler perry frequently does that. i have argued that his movies are very much about redeeming black men, and they do that on the backs of black women. and black women are always asked to take a back seat because the issues that black men face are seen as more urgent. there are really high rates of intimate partner violence and homicide for black women in the community as well, that rival the number of black men being killed by other black men. we don't have a huge body of

literature that talks about what is happening with black girls with education. so we simply don't know. when you do those searches comparable to what we know about black boys and young black men, it is simply a mountain compared to a small paper. >> that point is so powerful, and so important. i did a research study a couple of years ago on black girls specifically. and when i was first starting to do my interview for that it was almost a dearth of information on black girls and if you just do a basic google search on black girls, the main things that point up are sexual pornographic images. one of the most disheartening findings, was that black girls

when they are young, they have all of these aspirations, all of these goals. they want to reach the stars, but as they get older, they are saddled with so much responsibility, helping out at home, and helping to bring home the bacon, having to be safe in spaces that oftentimes aren't safe places. and teachers want to sort of dampen when they might perceive as aggression, but when black girls are trying to participation in discussions, it's seen as aggression and not lady like, so they are tampered down so by the time they reach high school those same girls that have huge aspirations, their aspirations are trunk indicated -- >> is that unique for black girls or girls in general? >> specifically with black

girls, because it's t the -- trying to reach a docile person. and they face that as well because the standard of beauty often rejects that is a black girl's body. so it's on interesting dichotomy that black girls face. they kind of walk a very tight, tight rope. >> so what does the future hold for these young black women? and how can black women achieve equality? keep tweeting, and we'll get to that and much more when we come back. ♪

♪ >> we have been talking about the accomplishments of black women, but how will they get to equality, and our community responded. >> yes. >> imani moving forward will

minnelals and even gen exer's look at these issues differently? >> i think they do. and i think a lot of that has to do with social media spaces like facebook and twitter. because proportionately there are more black people on twitter than white people. and with the amount of tumbler blogs that are based in black feminism what have you, we're seeing an availability for black people across the

[ technical difficulties ] >> using that hashtag black powers for black men . . . >> brittany going to you, is that happening right now? is there space to move forward together as a community? >> i think there are really good brothers who are doing this kind of work. there is a new writer on the

scene, who has a new book offest says out. and i watched what it means for black men to look at their issues, but i also spent a good portion of this day having a battle with the rapper to live on twitter because i called him out about his failure to be the best ally he could be for women in hip hop faces. so i want black men to become invested and to recognize that their liberation is tied to black women's liberation, and so if only half of the race has the things that they need to survive, none of us will survive. and i think that's a truth that continues to float to the background for black men, as they buy into these battles of

endangerment, and they benefit from the fact that black women do a lot of the political labor to make conditions better for them, and i have asked do black men care about us and love us as much as we care about them? and often that question is met with a sure no. >> the tipping point here, avis in terms of the true power and strength of women within the black community, when is that the linchpin? >> to me it's happening now. as we're seeing our voices rise particularly in any digital space as has been mentioned, that's the key, to be able to assert our own narrative in various ways. as long as we can expand that to other forces in the media, that will be that tipping point to make sure we can no longer be

ignored. >> and imani, i'll give you the last word. >> in terms of black men joining us in our might, one thing that hasn't been mentioned is reproductive rights and justice. i don't see a lot of black men invested in the struggle for the right to safe abortion care, the right to contraception, and i would like to see more black men step up and realize that part of black women's freedom is tied to our reproductive freedom, and when we are denied that freedom, we are denied that freedom. >> thanks to all of our guests, but before we go, waj has a couple of other stories we're following. ♪ >> online users decided to respond to the nsa invasion of

privacy with biting sarcasm this weekend. here are some tweets that made the prestigious cut. and allow me to share this one . . . and for you toy hards out there . . . next up to fish or to code that is the question. if you were a homeless man given a choice by a stranger between getting a hundred bucks or free coding lessons, what would you choose? leo will provide updates of his

progress through a facebook page that patrick created for him. and we're talking school textbooks with bill nigh. we asked you to post the most questionable thing you have ever seen in a school textbook, and this is what some of you said . . . keep tweeting us at ajamstream as always. >> all right. we look forward to seeing you tomorrow. in the meantime, we'll see you online. ♪

♪ hi, everyone, and welcome to al jazeera, i'm john siegenthaler in new york and here are the headlines. as a father i can't get the image out of my head of a man who held up his dead child, whaling while chaos swirling around him. >> the latest response from the secretary of state to the chemical weapon's attack in syria. in damascus, unidentified sources fire shots at un weapons inspectors. and nearly 4,000 firefighters now battling the rim fire in california. and students return to